Madam Speaker, on April 24, 1996, I asked a question of the Minister of Human Resources Development concerning manpower training. The question related to an old issue which, hopefully, will soon be settled.
In Quebec, there is a consensus that the whole issue of manpower training should be the sole responsibility of the Government of Quebec. This consensus includes people from every sector. It is rather unusual to see the Conseil du patronat du Québec, unions, the education sector and the government all agree on something.
Manpower training, including employment measures, must come under the responsibility of a single government, so as to put an end to the annual waste of $250 million, which will persist as long as the current duplication by the two levels of government is not eliminated.
Also, following the unemployment insurance reform, these activities will be totally funded through the unemployment insurance fund. Let us not forget that the unemployment insurance program was established almost 50 years ago so that people could have an income between jobs.
However, with its unemployment insurance reform, the present government now wants to use that money to fund training programs in an area that is not under federal but rather under provincial jurisdiction. It is unable to give this responsibility to the provinces and makes the argument that, since unemployment insurance contributions are paid to the federal government, it cannot transfer these funds to the provincial governments because it is responsible for that money.
I think there are two possible solutions. The first one is to ensure that contributions are really used to pay for unemployment insurance and for the federal government to withdraw from the area of manpower, leaving this responsibility to the provinces. In other words, that it get out of this tax field and let the Government of Quebec, or any other interested province, take it on.
The other possibility, as we have already seen with other programs, is to ensure that there are agreements that are followed up by audits, and that leave the province ample room to manoeuvre. The question of manpower training therefore needs to be clarified, it seems.
I would like the parliamentary secretary to tell us whether it is the government's intention to waive the requirement for an agreement with the province in order for people to be eligible for loans and grants. Somewhat perversely, the present reform says that the federal government may not provide funding unless there is an agreement with the province concerning the adult loans and grants programs.
This measure has the opposite effect as well, because the province is caught in a bind. If it does not sign an agreement with the federal government or if, for instance, it does not accept the national standards the federal government might want to impose, its citizens may have to do without training programs. In my view, this is totally unacceptable.
I would like to know if the government intends to simply withdraw from manpower training and let the provinces that wish to do so have full control over that area and develop effective programs to reduce the sectorial unemployment situation we are now facing in Canada and in Quebec, where we have about 500,000 jobs available and almost 1 million workers unemployed but we cannot seem to match people to jobs.
As the OECD, a renowned international organization, pointed out, we do not have effective training programs to help our workers adjust to the technological changes, because of all the various people involved in this area. Let me ask the parliamentary secretary if he can assure me that the government will reconsider its position on this issue.